This dissertation explores the work-based language education practices of undocumented Latino and Korean immigrants employed in Korean supermarkets and restaurants of Koreatown, New York City. The primary goal of this dissertation is to understand how immigrants educate each other about the communication strategies necessary for accomplishing work together. In Koreatown, Latinos and Koreans engage in cooperative sense-making in workplace "communities of practice" where they participate in joint activities, build new ways of using language together, and learn to dominate language. Interviews, handwritten glossaries, and audio-recorded multilingual workplace conversations reveal how immigrants' engage in sense-making together and learn about the rules, norms, and expectations of their new environments. Analysis of everyday labor practices shows how kitchen assistants, dishwashers, and supermarket workers transform their social positions through evolving language practices. This study also shows how experienced immigrants actively participate as teachers, translators, and guides for immigrant newcomers in Koreatown, transcending cultural and linguistic boundaries in the process.

No description available.

Orientadora: Suely Master / Banca: Marianna Francisca M. Monteiro / Banca: Thomas Willlian Helesgrove / Resumo: Este trabalho investiga a criação da palavra no campo da interculturalidade, a partir da análise do espetáculo "Recusa", realizado pela Cia Teatro Balagan. O grupo propõe uma imersão na cultura indígena, de forma que a linguagem falada em cena incorpora e reinventa expressões idiomáticas de oito línguas indígenas e do português brasileiro. Realizamos entrevistas com quatro artistas diretamente envolvidos no processo de criação deste espetáculo: a diretora Maria Thais, o dramaturgo Luís Aberto de Abreu e os atores Antonio Salvador e Eduardo Okamoto. Utilizamos o modelo de entrevista qualitativa proposto por Gaskell (2012). O tratamento às respostas recebidas foi baseado no método de "Análise de Conteúdo" (BAUER in BAUER; GASKELL, 2012). Verificamos nas experiências narradas nas entrevistas, a frequência de características e/ou itens que se repetem, reagrupando estes dados em categorias e subcategorias. Analisamos os conteúdos manifestos e também não-explícitos na fala dos entrevistados, colocando este material em diálogo com referências bibliográficas sobre interculturalidade e a teoria da tradução/transcriação de Haroldo de Campos / Abstract: This dissertation investigates the process of creation of words in a multicultural aspect based on the analysis of the play "Recusa" by "Cia de Teatro Balagan". The theatrical company proposes a deep immersion into the Brazilian indigenous culture in such a way that the language spoken on stage incorporates and reinvents idioms and language expressions from eight different tribe languages including Portuguese. We interviewed the director of the play, Maria Thais, the playwright Luís Alberto de Abreu, and the actors Antonio Salvador e Eduardo Okamoto. We followed Gaskell's interview archetype (2012 ). We studied the answers following the pragmatics of the "Análise de Conteúdo" (BAUER in BAUER; GASKELL, 2012). We noticed many topics would repeat in the answers given what allowed us to put them into categories and subcategories. We also put under our analysis the unspoken language that they spoke while being interviewed. We crossed reference with bibliography about multiculturalism and with the theory of transcriação by Haroldo de Campos / Mestre

Technological advances in Digital Signal Processing over the last decade have provided applied linguists with a number of computerized applications for speech analysis which can be of benefit to both the researcher and the instructor. This research project explores the techniques of speech spectrography and implements methods of acoustic phonetics to current issues in Second Language Acquisition theory. Specifically, the effects of vowel production in one's native language on the targets in a second language are investigated. Acoustic measurements of English vowels spoken by Japanese students were compared with measurements of native Japanese vowels and American English vowels. In addition, these data were compared with measurements of learner speech from a variety of native language backgrounds. Vowels from both groups of non-native English speakers showed tendencies toward the center of the vowel space. The less-experienced group showed greater token-to-token variability across height parameters than across frontedness parameters while the more experienced group showed no difference for parameters. Both groups exhibited greater frontedness than height variability between speakers which can be explained in part by differences in vocal tract size. In addition, Flege's Speech Learning Model was tested. Data did not support the hypothesis that similar vowels are more difficult to produce than different vowels. ANOVA tests showed that large LI vowel inventories do not advantage learners of languages with many vowels. The results suggest that the unique qualities of L2 speech may have more to do with developmental processes than L 1 interference.

Complaining happens in all cultures, and offers a unique insight into the values, taboos, and communicative practices of a given society. The ways in which complaining is viewed and performed vary drastically not only cross-culturally, but across smaller communal groups and between individuals, too. This dissertation approaches complaining from a multilateral perspective to investigate how individuals in three different language groups – monolingual French speakers, monolingual English speakers, and native English speakers enrolled in upper-division university French courses – perceive and produce complaints as well as the influential role played by social context. In the perception study, the researcher explores how individuals within the examined language groups identify the presence of complaints and perceive their naturalness when presented with contextualized scenarios involving native speakers. In the production study, the researcher examines both the frequency with which individuals complain and the strategies they employ to perform a complaint in various social situations. Additionally, within the production study the researcher examines the frequency with which participants opt out from complaining and their provided rationale for doing so. This dissertation not only identifies a variety of universal linguistic and sociocultural features of complaints, it also uncovers several aspects distinctive to the individual language groups. At the core of this dissertation is the argument that to best understand complaint behavior, researchers should acknowledge the essential influence of social context on both the perception and production of complaints. Above all, future research must consider the complex and dynamic interplay that exists between cross-cultural complaint behaviors and social norms of politeness.

Abstract not available

<p>Adverbial connectors join together sentences and units in a text to signal logical relations. Appropriately used, they can help the reader to make sense of the text. The usage of adverbial connectors can create problems for foreign language learners, and is often shown as under- , over- and misuse of connectors. In this study, a quantitative analysis of connector usage of advanced EFL learners’ and native speakers’ student writing is presented. For the current corpus-based study, three sub-corpora of the SUSEC (<em>Stockholm University Student English Corpus</em>) were chosen. The sample includes 164 linguistic essays from students at Stockholm University and 82 linguistic essays from students at King’s College in London. The analysis, where the learners’ connector usage is compared to that of native speakers, is based on 69 connectors. The results show that both the learners and the native speakers rely on a rather small set of these connectors in their writing. As a group, the advanced Swedish EFL learners underuse connectors in their written production. Additionally, the learners significantly overuse 12 and underuse 6 connectors. Similarities between the learners and the native speakers were found in the positioning of the connectors. Both groups prefer the most frequently used connectors in the medial position of a sentence, and prefer mostly the same set of connectors in the different positions of a sentence, although some differences in the positioning were also found. The findings create a basis for future research where a qualitative analysis of the connector usage could be carried out in order to increase knowledge of the interlanguage of the learners. The findings could also be used for pedagogical purposes.</p>

<p>The subject of this essay is a comparison of essays written by the same learners at two different points in time - i.e. while they were in the first and in the third grades of the Swedish secondary school. The essay includes a presentation of the raw data that have been used. The theoretical background is a general survey of some of the abundant literature relating to Second Language Acquisition and Error Analysis, and a large part of it deals with interlanguage theories. The analytical part of the work presents the results of the study, including a grammatical classification of the totality of the errors encountered as well as a presentation of the results for the whole of each class and for each individual learner. Finally, some of the theories are related to the results of the analysis and some conclusions are drawn. A part of the work consisted in the gathering of essays written by learners (exclusively with Swedish as their mother tongue) of the same class in a real school context, first to make a quantitative study of their errors, and second to make a comparison between their essays written at two different points in time. The aim was to find out if there had been an evolution, and to what extent the evolution had taken place. The hypothesis formulated at the beginning of this essay is that learners, in general, should make fewer errors after two years have passed. The results are that errors concerning Verbs (especially Concord), as well as miscellaneous spelling errors, were the most frequent ones, and this is true for both grades. As the total number of errors is lower for the third grade than for the first, and since the learners' production is larger in the third grade than in the first, the hypothesis can be considered to be true, though a larger study should be conducted to see if a general pattern can be found.</p>

<p>The aim of this paper was to investigate if students could become more proficient in their grammatical skills through feedback by underlining. The focus is on the problems students have with verbs when they learn English as a foreign language. 16 students from two different classes participated in the investigation. Eight of the students were interviewed on two occasions. They were shown essays they had written during the fall term of 2005. The teacher had underlined the errors they had made. During the interviews the students were asked to correct and explain the errors. The other eight students served as a control group since it could be suspected that the interviews might have an impact on the students’ performance.</p><p>The results of this paper show that the students who were interviewed were able to correct most of the errors that had been underlined. The students in this group also seemed to improve more than the control group, but the results of this investigation are inconclusive, since the total number of errors made was fairly small. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how much the students improved their proficiency in English grammar.</p>

Le roman africain de la nouvelle génération s’élabore au carrefour des langues et des cultures. Dans son orientation théorique et paratextuelle, le discours romanesque de la nouvelle génération se résume en une « modernité universalisante », lieu de l’articulation dialectique entre l’africanité et la mondialisation. Le contexte idéologique de création de cette littérature et le questionnement identitaire nous amènent à considérer l’africanité comme une notion dynamique et la mondialisation littéraire comme une ouverture à la concurrence et à la légitimité littéraire. Le discours péritextuel, ce haut lieu de la lisibilité/visibilité, amorce les stratégies de cette altérité que le romancier développe largement dans l’énonciation textuelle. La reconfiguration de l’énonciation dégage les ressorts d’une écriture nouvelle marquée par une narration éclatée, une spatialité multiple et une innovation thématique. La transgression narrative s’intègre au rang des discours de la déconstruction caractéristique de la postmodernité et se donne à lire comme le reflet de l’être de l’entre-deux qu’est l’écrivain migrant comme d’ailleurs son protagoniste. L’espace dans lequel évolue ce dernier peut être interprété comme une transteritorialité dans laquelle se moule la création littéraire marquée du sceau de l’altérité et traduit la « transidentité » du personnage évoluant dans cet espace. La perspective thématique renforce cette idée de l’altérité mondiale structurant le récit africain contemporain. Elle s’engage dans la voie des mutations et des transgressions caractéristiques de la mise en relation de l’africanité et de la mondialisation comme lieu de l’écriture/lecture du roman contemporain. Le mode d’écriture nous offre un cadre linguistique et stylistique dans lequel se joue l’altérité africanité-mondialisation. Le romancier de la nouvelle génération retravaille la langue française à l’aide des ingrédients des langues et des cultures dans lesquelles il baigne. Cette manipulation linguistico-stylistique est rendue possible par le jeu interlinguistique et le registre humoristico-ironique qui produisent une esthétique du « risible » face aux défis de l’altérité. L’écrivain africain contemporain, décomplexé par ces manipulations linguistique et stylistique, exploite les ressources de l’oralité en vue de concilier la pluralité des formes d’expression et des pratiques langagières de son environnement. Cette stratégie d’écriture produit une esthétique de l’oraliture, celle-là même qui, tout en exaltant les vertus de l’écriture, recourt aux différents procédés offerts par l’oralité, versant de l’africanité du texte contemporain, pour marquer une opposition contre l’écriture et l’Occident qui l’incarne./The African novel by the new generation is made at the meeting point of languages and cultures. In its theoretical and paratextual orientation, the fiction discourse by the new generation can be summed up as a « universality-oriented modernity », a place of dialectic link between africanity and globalization. The ideological context of creation of this literature and the identity questioning bring us to consider africanity as a dynamic notion and the literary globalization as a way to competition and literary legitimacy. The peritextual discourse, which is a high place of readability/visibility, initiates the strategies of this otherness which the novelist develops largely in textual enunciation. Reshaping the enunciation shows the motivation of a new writing characterized by a breaking up narration, a multiple area coverage and a thematic innovation. Narrative transgression is integrated in the rank of discourses of deconstruction characterizing postmodernity. It is to be read as a reflection of the being in the space between, this is the migrant writer as well as his protagonist. The space in which the latter evolves can be interpreted as a transterritoriarity in which is moulded literary creation sealed by otherness and shows « transidentity » of the character evolving in that space. The thematic perspective reinforces this idea of global otherness structuring the African contemporary narration. It moves into mutations and transgressions characterizing the relationship between africanity and globalization as a place of writing/reading of contemporary novel. The writing mode gives us a linguistic and stylistic framework in which takes place the otherness africanity-globalization. The new generation novelist works on the French language he uses by means of ingredients of languages and cultures surrounding him. This linguistic and stylistic manipulation is made possible by an interlinguistic game and the humoristic and ironic register which produce aesthetics of the “funny” in front of otherness challenges. The contemporary African writer, encouraged by these linguistic and stylistic manipulations, exploits the oral ressources in order to reconcile the plurality of forms of expression and of language practices of his environment. This writing strategy produces aesthetics of orality, the one which, in addition to exalting the virtues of writing, has recourse to different procedures of orality, showing thus africanity of contemporary text, to mark an opposition against writing and the Western world which embodies it.